Obliquity

Everything is oblique in this place, nothing is straight.
All is slanted, diagonal, sloping. Stones roll, holes form:
rain makes the terrain even more hazardous –
those drops that fell are giant shovels digging in.

As I see it from where I lie
somewhat sunbathing in the moist, fresh air,
green grass, grey clouds rushing through the sky –
one could fear they’d crash in one of the mountain tops
just like this plane did months ago – or the roof tops –
one erupting from this village lost in the snow
when winter comes
and nothing else, other than crowds skiing from dawn till dusk, matters.
All this whiteness cannot erase
the lunacy, the forlornness, the ridiculous size of this place.

He may well stare at all these trees –
branches rather, sticks that emerge from the soil,
cut off after last fall when the saint chain sawed the remains of lust.
No sin has been performed since then, all became flat again,
unlike this place where only the walls have to be straight and vertical.

A bit about Walter: Walter Ruhlmann works as an English teacher, edits mgversion2>datura and Beakful, and runs mgv2>publishing. His latest collections are The Loss at Flutter Press, Twelve Times Thirteen at Kind of a Hurricane Press, 2014, and Crossing Puddles at Robocup Press, 2015.